The 50 Best Inventions of 2009
I came across the Time Magazine 50 best inventions of 2009 list this morning and thought it’s worth sharing with the ‘handpicked and carefully sorted’ readers. The list includes number 1 – NASA’s Ares Rockets; number 4 – the smart thermostat; number 8 – the AIDS vaccine; number 22 – the custom puppy; and number…
The food supply chain – 2010 concerns.
(photo courtesy of DFID) The food supply chain (the production, processing and distribution of food from farms to the food on consumers' plates) is in the UK news again.
What has caused all the snow to fall this winter in the UK – climate change?
As I returned from a Southern Hemisphere holiday, where temperatures were nearly 40 degrees C, I was shocked by the unusually cold weather in the UK. The winters in the UK are usually much milder than this as we all know, so what is going on with the weather? If you don’t know already, read…
UK launches new food security strategy
Earlier this week, the UK's Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor John Beddington, launched a new science strategy to help improve the security and sustainability of Britain's food system. It quickly disappeared from the news agenda here as the UK ground to a halt in the snow, but at CABI improving food security is one of the…
A dramatic approach to Cocoa farming
Street/community dramas are often used to try to get a message across to a local audience, but have you ever seen a street drama about pesticide use? Well that’s what they’re doing in Nigeria – a dance/drama approach is being used by the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN) to educate farmers about which chemicals…
Is local food environmentally costly?
Many consumers feel that they should be buying “local food” to help combat climate change – but could “local food” actually result in more carbon emissions than food distributed through conventional supply chains? David Oglethorpe raises this possibility along with some other surprising ideas in a paper in CAB Reviews. Oglethorpe, of the Newcastle…
Focusing food security efforts where they are needed
The current World Summit on Food Security , as noted in an earlier blog, is a major effort to focus agriculture to lower risks of starvation and economic insecurity. But how can researchers and planners work out what is needed where? John Dixon of ACIAR and his co-authors describe a major Food and Agriculture Organization –…
FAO World Summit on Food Security
Photo credit: FAO Over one billion people live in chronic hunger… Every six seconds, a child dies of hunger. World leaders convened at Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Headquarters for the World Summit on Food Security today adopted a declaration pledging renewed commitment to eradicate hunger from the face of the earth sustainably and at…
Mobile phone technology rings true
In the West, we live in a world of information overload. At our fingertips we have instant access to a wealth of knowledge, and then some…We struggle to keep pace with rapidly developing technology but this is only a problem for the well heeled. In the developing world the story is starkly different. How we…
Climate change – the influence on food security
“When it rains, it does not rain on one roof only” This is a saying from the home village in western Kenya of my friend and colleague Dennis Rangi, CABI’s Executive Director for International Development. He said this in his introduction to the CABI Summit in London which I though was particularly apt as I…